


Gray Areas

by FemmeslashFanatic (with_bleeding_hands)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent, F/F, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 23:15:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12663438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/with_bleeding_hands/pseuds/FemmeslashFanatic
Summary: D'Qar, with its beautiful, lush vegetation, holds dangers as well. Leia had thought it was safe, but she and Rey strayed too far from the Resistance base...(It's a dubcon sex pollen fic, featuring slightly angsty Leia and willing-but-brain-full-of-sex-pollen Rey.)





	Gray Areas

**Author's Note:**

> I know that sex pollen is a...Thing in fandom, but to be frank? It kind of scares me. So have an actually serious, peril-ridden sex pollen fic.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I don’t think Rey should be sleeping with her rapist. I know, I know, it’s not that simple. But that’s what it feels like.

Rey turned over and nuzzled close to me, tucking her head under my chin, whispering my name. I held her close; at this point, I couldn’t make the right decision and kick her out. It was too late, really; kicking her out would just be cruel. The right decision would have been to stop her from taking my clothes off earlier tonight.

“Thank you,” Rey murmured against my collarbones. It took me a moment to figure out what she said, since it was somewhat muffled.

“For what?” I asked.

Rey sat up and kissed me. For someone who was so inexperienced at kissing, she was awfully good at it. She stroked my throat while she kissed me, having figured out that I love having my neck touched. When she was done kissing me—which wasn’t for a while—she nipped at my ear and whispered “For tonight.” She grinned, looking slightly drunk. “I knew I would like it…with you…of course…” she blushed. “And I don’t think I properly thanked you earlier. For saving me.”

Ah, yes. That. I did, technically, save her life yesterday. I brushed one hand down her face, not knowing what to say. She was alive; that was what was most important. Instead of saying something stupid and meaningless, I kissed her again and gave her a simple “You’re welcome”.

As she settled down with her head resting against my chest, I finally figured out something else to say. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

“Thanks to you,” she murmured sleepily.

She’s right about that. “I wasn’t about to let that damn plant hurt you. But Dr. Kalonia did end up neutralizing the poison too.”

Rey kissed the center of my chest. “Well, I’m only sleeping with you.”

“I’m fine with that,” I said.

She drifted off to sleep fairly soon after that. I had no idea how she could possibly sleep.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened.

We had decided to rest for a little bit after a long walk. I remember lying on a picnic blanket next to Rey, feeling a blush creep up my face as Rey’s fingertips brushed over the back of my hand. The setting was, after all, storybook romantic: we were lying beside each other on a under a bright blue sky scudded with the occasional cloud, and the gentle rushing sound of a nearby brook provided background noise. I turned my hand over; Rey gave it a quick squeeze and didn’t let go.

I closed my eyes. I had barely slept the previous night, even with Rey there; she had knocked on my door after sensing one too many nightmares from me, and she had ended up lying beside me until morning. Being near Rey was soothing, and I could definitely sense the potential for something other than friendship developing between the two of us. Not that I thought it would come to anything more than holding hands, especially due to Rey’s age.

Rey edged closer, resting her forehead against mine. “Want to keep walking?” she murmured.

I remember making some kind of contemplative noise as I thought about that. We had already walked farther than I had ever been from the Resistance base, but I could stand to walk a little more, especially because lying down beside Rey might lead to more intimacy than was a good idea. “You go ahead,” I said, stretching. “I’ll be right there.”

I should have gone with her. I wish I had gone with her.

Rey briefly brushed a hand over my hair and got up. I heard her walk away and was just climbing to my feet when I heard Rey give out a terrified scream. I scrambled up and ran in the direction Rey had gone. “Rey!”

It took me an agonizing few seconds to find her. She was a few feet from the pond, on her back, squirming and grabbing helplessly at something that appeared to be climbing her leg. I knew right away what was attacking her and my heart felt like it leapt into my throat. I lunged for Rey, but I was too late. Rey cried out in fear and pain, and I couldn’t see the plant moving anymore, and it felt like my stomach nearly joined my heart in its attempt to exit via my mouth, because I knew what that meant.

I was beside her on the ground in a second. “Rey?”

“Leia…” Rey whimpered. “What is it?”

The most common name for it was the Death’s Pleasure Sprout, but I wasn’t about to tell her that name. “It’s a plant that we thought we scoured from the face of this planet,” I said. I felt Rey’s forehead; she was already warm.

“W-why did it go inside me?” Rey managed.

“That’s how it works. It paralyzes its prey with arousal by secreting hormones directly to the cervix. Damn thing.” What I didn’t mention was that it would kill her if we didn’t get it out. I calculated; we had gone farther than I had ever walked from the base. I didn’t know if I could carry her ten yards, much less all the way to the base, and soon she wouldn’t be able to walk. And if she was already warm, the poison was already taking effect, and if we didn’t get it out…

“Can we get it out?” Rey asked. Her fingers dug into the dirt. “I want it out!”

“Okay,” I soothed. My fingers went to her belt. “You’re going to have to help me.”

Rey struggled out of her trousers with barely any help from me. She plunged her fingers into herself, reaching for the sprout, but it was already in too deep. “Leia, help me,” she begged.

“Okay,” I said, but I felt what seemed to be a fist seizing my insides. Rey was about to be so horny she couldn’t think, and the literature was clear: a person under the influence of the Death’s Pleasure Sprout could not consent. I was pretty sure that sticking my fingers in Rey in order to get the damn plant out still counted as a medical procedure, but the line between that and sexual assault was about to become fuzzy.

“Leia…” her voice was a whimper.

“I know,” I murmured, touching her face and her hair. Her skin was still hot, too hot. She reached up and touched my face, her hands shaking.

“You said it p-paralyzes its prey with arousal?” she asked. I didn’t need the Force to be able to tell that it was already doing just that. I nodded. Rey closed her eyes and swallowed. “What if you get it out?”

“I can try,” I said. What I didn’t tell her was that if I got the sprout out of her, she would still need the antidote to the poison, and we’d have to somehow get back to the base fast. I reached to rest my hand on Rey’s thigh. “Are you sure you want me to try to get it out? We can try to walk back to the base…”

“Please, get it out,” Rey begged.

Rey was soaking wet. It was easy to sink two fingers into her, but she was tight, and I cursed the sprout using every language I knew as I struggled to open her up more.

Rey moaned softly, her hips tilting to push my fingers in deeper. I shuddered, feeling like I really might throw up this time. I reached to touch her face again, gently, as if that could make what I was doing to Rey any less wrong.

I wasn’t expecting what happened next, which was that Rey would sit up and grab onto me hard. She leaned forward, as if to kiss me, but stopped herself at the last second. “Can I kiss you?” she whispered.

Nice of her to ask. “Yes,” I said, if only because I knew how hard it would be for her to restrain herself. Rey wrapped her arms around me and kissed me hungrily, her lips soft and far too hot against mine. I held her and kissed her for a long time, stroking her face and neck, but eventually I pulled away, ignoring her whimper of protest. “I still have to get that plant out of you, remember?”

She nodded and lay back down. I knew perfectly well that I wasn’t going to get the Death’s Pleasure Sprout out of her just by trying to reach it with my fingers. The next step was as obvious to me as it was terrifying; if Rey had an orgasm, it would push the plant out, or at least within reach.

I leaned over and kissed her again. “Rey, I need to…”

“I want you,” she begged.

“I know,” I said, trailing my fingertips down her throat. “Rey, it’s the plant that’s making you—“

“No,” she cut me off. “I…I wasn’t expecting it to be this soon, but I wanted you to be my first.”

Her first. Oh, Maker, I really was going to be sick. Except I couldn’t be sick, because Rey’s life depended on me getting that poisonous sprout out of her. I lifted Rey’s shirt up, earning a soft moan of “yes” from her. There wasn’t time for gentle foreplay, but I couldn’t just shove my fingers up her again, not if I was trying to give her pleasure this time. I had never done this with a woman, but I had the basic idea; I leaned over and kissed one of Rey’s nipples while teasing the other one with my fingertips. Rey sighed happily and laid her head back.

“Mmm, Leia, that feels so good!”

Then I shouldn’t waste any time. I sank down to Rey’s core and dropped a quick kiss on her inner thigh, and she spread her legs for me. “Are you ready?”

“Yes. Please,” she whispered.

I wished I had a better idea of what I was doing as I leaned down and covered Rey’s mound with my mouth, stroking her clit with my tongue. She tasted…good. Normal. I had been afraid that the sprout would have interfered with that, and apparently it hadn’t, so…small blessings. She felt so soft and delicate in my mouth that I almost lost track of how dire the situation was.

“Can I have your fingers in me?” Rey whimpered.

Oh. Right. Where they should probably be anyway, in order to pull the sprout out. I eased two fingers into Rey and she called out my name again. I sought out the textured skin of her internal pleasure spot and stroked it with my fingertips.

“Just like that!” Rey cried out.

I kept going, trying to focus only on Rey gasping and moaning my name, adjusting what I was doing for her when I sensed that she wanted something different. Thank the Maker it wasn’t long before I felt her arch and shudder, and her inner walls squeezed the sprout toward her opening enough that I could curl two fingers around it and scoop it out. I winced as I sensed pain from her as I pulled the sprout from her body, but what mattered was that it was out. I flung the thing into the air, drew my blaster, and shot it. It dropped to the ground, smoking, twitched once, and lay still.

I leaned up and kissed Rey’s forehead. “You did so well,” I told her, and I meant it; she hadn’t even whimpered when I had pulled the plant out. She reached feebly for me, her arms shaking, and I prayed it was just the aftermath of orgasm making her weak, not the poison.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I feel a little better.”

“Can you walk?” I asked her. “I have to get you to the infirmary.”

In response, she tried to get up. I supported her as best I could, but after several attempts at walking, it became apparent that Rey’s knees weren’t going to cooperate. “I can do it!” she insisted as she collapsed a fourth time.

I had little doubt that someone as tough and determined as Rey could regain her ability to walk despite the poison eventually, but we didn’t have time for eventually. “I’ll be right back,” I told her. I quickly fetched the forgotten picnic blanket, returned to the spot where Rey was still struggling to get up, and wrapped the blanket around myself in a makeshift sling where Rey could lie while I carried her. “We have to hurry, Rey. Can I try to carry you?”

Looking defeated but mostly frustrated, Rey nodded. It had been a while since basic training, but I remembered how to pick up another person in a soldier’s carry, and I was able to gather Rey into my arms with only a little staggering. I wrapped the part of the blanket that I had fashioned into a sling around her (alarmingly thin) body, which helped, and I carried Rey back to the base as fast as I could, cursing my lack of height not for the first time in my life.

Having a position of power for one’s whole life means you learn early how to be authoritative at any volume, but I also happen to be excellent at being loud. The moment a Resistance member came into view, I shouted for help with as much volume as I could muster.

“Get medical help! It was a Death’s Pleasure Sprout!” I hollered, and the Twi’lek mechanic who had heard me must have been able to tell what I said, because he nodded and pelted toward the building containing the infirmary at full speed.

After that, everything happened quickly. A stretcher was brought for Rey, who, barely conscious, still reached for me as she was laid down. “Stay,” she said, so quietly I could barely understand her.

“I’ll be right here,” I said, and followed the medical team to the infirmary, where Rey was transferred to a bed and Dr. Kalonia peppered me with questions about the size of the sprout, its color, had I been able to extract it, how long it had been inside Rey, how long had it taken for Rey to feel feverish…I answered as accurately as I could, still standing at Rey’s bedside. She tried to keep a grip on my hand, but she was fighting a losing battle with staying awake. Dr. Kalonia did a quick scan of Rey with one of her various medical instruments, barked instructions to one of the nurses, and a syringe seemed to appear in her hands. She plunged the needle into Rey’s arm and depressed the plunger, delivering her best estimate for how much antidote Rey needed.

“We’ll need to get her disinfected, too,” said Dr. Kalonia. She turned to one of the nurses. “Prep Shower A.” She eyed me. “You were also exposed to the poison, General. I’ll need to run a quick scan.”

I nodded, and Dr. Kalonia tapped a few buttons on the same instrument she had used to scan Rey. Dr. Kalonia nodded, satisfied. “I’m only finding external traces of the poison. You should proceed to Shower Area B. Those clothes will either need to be bleached or discarded.”

Why the hell would I care about my clothes when Rey’s life had been in danger? Although I suppose Dr. Kalonia had to say that as a courtesy. “Roger that,” I said neutrally and, as Dr. Kalonia had ordered, proceeded to Shower Area B, wondering how the hell I had managed not to ingest any of the sprout's poison.

I was standing under a steady stream of water when the enormity of what had just happened hit me, and I bent double and threw up. I steadied myself against a wall, choking and crying. “Rey,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Extraction of a Death’s Pleasure Sprout was a medical procedure. Induction of orgasm was one method of extraction. While being under the influence of the Death’s Pleasure Sprout meant a person couldn’t consent, in cases of a medical emergency, someone who had had sexual contact with the person who had been attacked by the sprout could not be prosecuted for rape…that is, as long as they had been trying to remove the sprout. That had happened once; it had been how we figured out that there were Death’s Pleasure Sprouts on D’Qar. Two Resistance members had been alone and far from the base, like me and Rey, when one of them had been accosted by one of those damn sprouts. The one who had been attacked by the sprout had survived by the intercession of the other person, but the aftermath had been ugly. The one who had extracted the sprout from his friend had ended up leaving the Resistance. His friend would have died without his help, but he had felt like a rapist.

So did I.

I didn’t know how far I had carried Rey. It could have been possible for me to bring her back to the base and have Dr. Kalonia remove the sprout with some kind of medical device. I did have feelings for Rey; had I acted on them instead of bringing Rey directly to the base? I shuddered at the thought and retched again, but there was nothing in my stomach anymore. I straightened up and took several deep breaths. It was up to Dr. Kalonia to make the final judgment, really; if she decided that the medical evidence proved that I had had to have sex with Rey in order to save her (a sentence I never thought would cross my mind), I wasn’t guilty. If we had been closer to the base than I thought, if Rey would have been all right if I had let a medical professional remove the sprout, that might mean a court-martial. And after she was lucid, Rey might decide that she thought I was guilty of raping her.

I would just have to wait to see what Dr. Kalonia and Rey had to say.

I finished showering, toweled myself off, and dressed in the scrubs that someone had left for me. Whoever left the scrubs had also left me a couple of hair ties, so I put my hair into a single braid and walked back into the infirmary. As soon as I came out of the showering area, a nurse stopped me and scanned me for traces of the poison; I was clean, so I walked over to where Dr. Kalonia was still attending to Rey.

“How is she?” I asked, and Dr. Kalonia turned to me with a severe expression.

“I’ll have to keep her overnight for observation,” she said grimly. “It was close. The poison was potent, and she weighs very little. If you had been five, maybe ten minutes later, she might not have made it.”

I felt chilled to my core. Far from it having been possible for me to not extract the sprout myself, Rey had almost died. Instead of letting my concern show on my face, I said, “What’s her prognosis?”

“Fairly good. Keeping her overnight is more of a precaution than anything else,” said Dr. Kalonia. She paused. “You saved her life, General. You did the right thing.”

I hoped I looked less relieved than I felt.

“Leia?” I heard Rey’s voice croak, and I immediately went to her side.

“I’m here,” I said, as if it weren’t a distinct possibility that Rey would rather never lay eyes on me again now that the effects of the sprout had been neutralized. Regardless of the fact that I had saved her, I didn’t know how she felt about my method of saving her.

“Dr. Kalonia says you saved me,” said Rey in a weak voice, clearly trying to sound as normal as possible.

“Looks that way,” I said.

“Thank you,” she whispered, reaching for my face. “Kiss me?”

I glanced at Dr. Kalonia. “Is it safe?”

“Both of you are clean,” said Dr. Kalonia, obviously trying to hold back a smile (or maybe it was only my Force abilities that made it obvious). “It’s safe.”

I leaned down and gave Rey a kiss that was far more chaste than the one she wanted. I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to kiss her again without remembering that our first kiss had been during a not entirely consensual encounter.

Obviously, I had kissed her again. I had done more than kiss her, I thought as she slumbered peacefully in my arms. I wasn’t sure how I had managed to have consensual sex with Rey without being reminded of how I had been reaching for a poisonous plant the first time I had my fingers in her. It probably had had something to do with the fact that Rey categorically denied that what had passed between us yesterday had been rape; she had dim memories of being in danger and being rescued by having really good sex with someone she trusted. “I don’t care that the poison is supposed to mean I couldn’t consent,” she had insisted. “I would have consented with you.”

In terms of consent, maybe that was what mattered. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be sure.

Rey stirred. “Leia?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

She was extremely Force-sensitive; my ruminations must have woken her. I stroked her face. “Just thinking.”

“Quarter-portion for your thoughts,” she said sleepily.

I closed my eyes. “Rey, I…care about you. I want what’s best for you. I still can’t shake the feeling that I’ve wronged you.”

“You didn’t,” she soothed, leaning over to kiss my cheek.

I put my arms around her and squeezed briefly. “I’m working on believing that.”

“I’ll keep saying it until you believe it.” She kissed me again, this time on my forehead.

I sighed. “I don’t want to keep you up because I can’t sleep. I’m going to the infirmary. I need a sleep aid.”

I sensed a frisson of unhappiness from her, but she let go of me when I got up. I changed into a fresh pair of fatigues to walk to the infirmary, where Dr. Kalonia gave me an understanding look and a sleeping pill. Half an hour later, I was finally falling asleep, Rey beside me, kissing and caressing my hair. The last thing I remember thinking before I slept was that I was fairly certain I would have nightmares later, but when I woke, Rey would be there, and I hoped that eventually the nightmares would go away…but Rey would still be in my dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to hell.


End file.
